How to Transfer Photos from Your Digital Camera to Computer

Audio Transcript

If you have digital photos in your camera or media cards that you need to transfer to your computer, you have a few options. You can connect your camera or card reader to your computer by using a USB cable or if your camera has a docking station, plug it into your computer and place your camera in the doc. And finally, if your computer has a media card slot, insert your media card into it.

Once your camera is attached to the computer or your media card is in the media slot, you have some choices on how to transfer files onto your machine.

If you have Adobe Photoshop Elements installed, the Adobe Photo downloader may pop up. If it does, you'll see the number of photos found, the hard drive space needed and some options for the transfer. The default options are recommended, but you can adjust them if you prefer. When you're ready, click 'get photos.' You're photos are copied to your hard drive and imported into the Adobe Photoshop Elements organizer, where you can edit, print and burn a CD of your photo collection.

If you don't have Adobe Photoshop Elements installed, or the Adobe downloader does not pop up, you should see an AutoPlay screen like this one. Select 'import pictures' to copy photos from your camera or media card into the Windows photo gallery. Add a tag to help you find and organize photos later, and click import. Once you see your photos here, they're safely on your computer. You can choose to print, email or burn photos to a CD or DVD.

On a Mac, you see your camera or media card as another drive on the computer. Double click the icon, and then through the folder structure to find your photos. To copy all of your photos easily, click edit, select all, then edit, copy. Then locate the folder to paste them on your computer and choose edit, paste. Your photos are now safely on your Mac hard drive.

Now you can delete these photos off of your camera or media card by double clicking on your camera icon and through to your photos. Choose edit, select all, then file, move to trash. Then empty the trash by clicking and holding the trash icon and selecting, empty trash, to ensure that your camera or card is clear.

Finally, be sure to eject your camera properly, by clicking and dragging it to the eject icon. Now you have space to take more photos.

For extra insurance, burn a back up CD or DVD of the photos on your hard drive.

First, insert a blank disk into your computers CD or DVD drive. Next click, burn from the folder you copied your photos into. Type a name for the disk, choose the mastered option and click next. The burned folder will appear with all of the photos you selected to burn. Click burn to disk, give it a title and click next. After you burn the CD, put it back into your drive and verify that your photos are on it. Click start, computer and click your CD drive. You should see all of your photos you burned.

Be sure to label your disk and now you can safely delete photos from your media card. To do this, click on the media card, double click through to your photos, select your photos, and choose organize, delete, and yes to delete. Your media card is now clear and ready for more photo taking.